Archive for January, 2011

Now that you have some fan following, the next question is how to make that page a selling point? A lot of people are actually confused as to how an entire transaction can take place on Facebook. The reason of this confusion is simple. A lot of companies that have Facebook pages have features up to adding an item to a card. If somebody wants to pay then they are redirected to a different page and hence the confusion. Well, we will answer this question but we would like to start from the beginning of where we left before.

After you have some fan following on your Facebook fan page you would most probably like to make that page a selling point. Well, that is not very difficult. All of us have seen how items are listed on eBay and Amazon. There are applications on Facebook that can do that for you for free. You can create a similar looking page which will have all the details of your products. Give them offers that aren’t available otherwise. Entice them to buy from this page. Give them the option to view reviews from people who have bought and used the product.

Now, there are applications on Facebook like Payvment which can be used for fcommerce. These applications utilize PayPal’s ‘Adaptive payments’ API and gives the user a complete Facebook shopping experience. More importantly, once you have added the application to your fan page, it gives you options of adding and managing your products within the application. There are other tools like Beeshopy which can be used for the same purpose and which provide some additional features like product listings. All in all, these applications have made Facebook a big market which can be used as a one shop stop for everything! It is a hot new channel for big and small merchants so what are you waiting for? Join the bandwagon.

Now that we are clear with the basics, we will talk about how to attract more fans on your Facebook page. The first key point is quality content. It is what will keep your fans from leaving the page once they are in.
Advertise a lot. Remember not all advertising is paid. 😀

There are websites like tribe pro where you can join tribes and advertise about your page. You can search for a tribe that is relevant to your business and market and start advertising there. You will get fans but the key point is that you should want them to be there again and not just this time. The solution to this is simple; Quality content. Nothing can beat it, trust me. It is what will keep them wanting to come back to your page.

Add a link of your Facebook fan page to your email signature and mail a lot, to your friends, to your family and to all the people you can.

There are websites like usocial.net which can help you advertise. It will save you the effort of emailing to a lot of people but it might cost you some bit.

Use you Fan Box. It is a snippet of code that can be inserted in the sidebar of your blog or website. It will make it easy for people who have a Facebook account to join your fan page without even visiting Facebook or your fan page. It is one of the most powerful tools to advertise and it’s free. But you need to know some HTML for that. If you don’t, well, ask a friend who knows or you can learn it easily from the internet.

Interact with your fans. Give them new information about your products, resolve their queries and answer their questions. Involve them and get them to spend more time on your page. Put up quizzes, competitions and give away some prizes and offers to winners. Talk about them. Talk about your best customers and give them a chance to feel proud to be associated to your brand.

Circulate your content as much as possible. Apart from some mentioned above, there are numerous other services available on the internet that can help you in spreading your content. Some of them are free and some paid.

Let’s get the basics right first. The first question that you need to answer is: is your Facebook page profile complete? You should maximize the use of ‘About’ box. Since the number of characters that can be entered in this box are limited, you should be brief and concise. A link to your website should be included since no one will take the pain of copying and pasting it. You should also have the links to your blog and your twitter account in this box. You can use URL shorteners like bitly to free up some space.

Remember, a lot of people a lot of time on Facebook. So you might want to add stuff to your Facebook page which you have on your website or otherwise. It could include product catalogues and information, new products and offers, reviews, contests and quizzes, polls etc. Also, remember the good old saying: A picture is worth a thousand words. So include as many pictures and videos as possible.

Make your Facebook page as interactive as possible. Let your customers give their views and opinions. It may so happen that your customers will act as your innovators and more importantly you will get constant feedback about your products and services.

If you are a business owner, you might have a Facebook page by now. But is that Facebook page being followed by the number of people you want? More importantly, are you driving any sales from that page or is it just giving out information to its followers? Well, in this article we would first like to discuss how you can attract more number of fans to your Facebook page. Then we would also discuss how you can turn your Facebook page into a selling point for your business. Before beginning I would like to clarify that if you think that this can be done with the blink of an eye, this might not be the right page for you. If you belong to the other category, read on.

Like this:

Coke introduces NesTea, a ready to drink beverage in the non carbonated segment. Priced at Rs 25 for a 400 ml pack, is it a good move?

If we look at the non carbonated drinks segment, Coke’s Pulpy Orange is priced at Rs 20 for a 400 ml pack and its Minute Maid Nimbu fresh is priced at Rs 15. Imagine how different it is for you to have a Nimbu drink or an Ice tea. I don’t think there is much.
Traditionally tea has been liked hot by Indians. Coke wants to change this Indian mentality. The reason could be probably Indians becoming more aware about their health coupled with their increasing ability to spend more. Ice tea would be a good substitute to carbonated drinks and would add to the options available in the non-carbonated segment.

Agreed, the Indian juice market is growing at a considerable pace, but 25 rupees for Ice tea? It is tea after all! We can spend more on fruit juices because its juice and packed fruit juice is good for health. At least that is what we think!

So will Coke be able to change this Indian mentality and especially at this higher price? I have my doubts but I am sure Coke has thought this through.